On Terrible Driving

Yesterday statistics were released indictating which states had the best and worst drivers. According to this study, my good old home state of New Jersey is ranked number 2, right behind New York, for worst drivers. This is far from surprising.

In my short driving tenure, I have seen some of the stupidest things while driving. A few weeks ago a woman tailgated me on the Parkway while putting her make up on and talking on a cell phone. She hit the rumble strips, dropped her make-up, and finally realized how idiotic she was being. She backed away a bit after that.

I have also seen two instances of people running red lights while a cop was right there. The first time, I was approaching a yellow light, and it was far away so I slowed down. Nevertheless, the man in the lane next to me sped up and went through the light that had been red for several seconds. A cop was sitting at the intersection and immediately pulled the man over.

The car involved in the second incident was luckier on several grounds. First, (s)he pulled into the intersection even though the light had been red for a long time, so (s)he was incredibly lucky that (s)he did not get into an accident. Second, there was once again a cop sitting at the inersection, and for whatever reason the cop let the person go. My guess is that the cop did this so the driver would feel like a complete jerk, and (s)he was probably kicking him/herself for the rest of the day over it. (Sorry for the gender neutral sentences - I didn't see the driver and do not want to be accused of throwing one gender under the bus! No pun intended)

Now with all these poor drivers (especially in NJ, go figure), there is bound to be road rage. This is my time for a public service announcement. Control your driving. In a defensive driver course I painstakingly sat through for 6 or 7 or 349 hours or so (time ceased to exist after 2 hours), the instructor told us to let terrible drivers have their accidents somewhere else. You can respond to tailgating or unneccessary behavior with anger and retalliation, but it could cause some serious problems. Keep your cool, and let that person will be speeding away from you. You will most likely never see them again. The same applies for other situations. In the shotr run someone may anger you, but you have to let that person get away a cause havok somewhere else.

Also, do not text and drive. (I'll stop my warnings soon do not worry - but Oprah wants us to spread this message. No I do not watch it I've just heard). There's no need and it's incredibly dangerous. Check out this website for an interactive texting and driving game!

-MM